Women’s lacrosse trumps Bowdoin

Co-captain Anne Rehfuss ’16 earned three assists against Bowdoin in the women’s first season win. Photo courtesy of Sports Information.

Women’s lacrosse (1-2, 1-1 in the NESCAC) defeated Bowdoin 10-8 last Saturday at home. This game marks the Ephs’ first win after losses to Trinity 12-5 and to RPI 8-7 in the past two weeks.

“I was very happy with the way the team played against Bowdoin,” Head Coach Chris Mason said. “It was a very good team win. Defense played very well with strong goalkeeping from Ana Alvarenga ’19 behind them. Offensively, we handled the ball well and showed good patience.”

After securing the first draw control, Bowdoin’s Emma Beecher drove to the goal and gave the Polar Bears a 1-0 lead 15 seconds into the contest. One minute later, the Ephs answered back when Eleanor Lustig ’18 netted the first of her two goals of the game.

Williams and Bowdoin again went goal for goal until Katie Gallop ’17 scored unassisted off of a crease roll and Jenna Chodos ’17 followed with another score. This put the Ephs up by two until, despite phenomenal goalkeeping from Alvarenga, Beecher snuck in another goal. The Ephs then scored once more to finish the first half with a two-goal lead at 5-3.

The second half began with back-to-back goals from Bowdoin’s Lindsay Picard to tie the game at five. At 23:03, the women regained the lead when co-captain Micaela Dussel ’16 fired a perfect pass from behind the goal to co-captain Anne Rehfuss ’16 for one of her two assists. Bowdoin again tied the game with another unassisted goal from Beecher.

Williams scored four more times en route to victory, including two goals from Suzanna Penikis ’19. The Ephs showed great movement on offense with different combinations of players assisting on every scoring play. With 5:20 remaining in the game, Emma Tenbarge ’19 scored the final goal for Williams when the women were playing a man-up due to a Bowdoin yellow card.

Beecher led all players with five goals for Bowdoin. Three Williams players scored two goals each, including Lustig, Penikis and Alyssa Maddalone ’16. Rehfuss added three assists and Alvarenga made 11 saves in the net for the Ephs.

“It was a great team win,” co-captain Anne Rehfuss ’16 said. “Both the offense and defense worked really hard together and communicated, and I think we realized that as a cohesive group, we can do much more than we can as individuals. We’ve been improving with every game, but we still have a lot of things to improve upon, as we’re a fairly young team with a lot of new players on the field.”

“We took advantage of scoring opportunities,” Mason said. “We had eight players figure in the scoring, which makes it difficult for the opponent.”

On Thursday, Williams lost to RPI by one goal in a contest that came down to the final minute. Although the Ephs headed into halftime down 5-2, they ultimately came back for the last few minutes until the Engineers called a timeout and scored with 44 seconds left on the clock.

Williams will travel to New London, Conn., to take on Conn. College for its first spring break game on March 19 at 12 p.m.

From there, the team will go to Clermont, Fla., to compete in their spring break play against RIT, Union and Buffalo State.

“This weekend was a big win in that we started to click in ways we hadn’t before,” Rehfuss said. “Hopefully, we continue along this path over spring break as we get to play some NESCAC games as well as non-conference games.”